Internet social networks have become a significant phenomenon. Social networks allow an Internet user to create an account and a user profile, often for free, and interact with other users of the social network. A social network user can gain access to the profile of another user by requesting to add him or her as a friend. Once approved, the “friendship” typically gives both users access to each other's profiles and the content posted on them. Friends' posts may appear as news stories in each other's news feeds, and friends can usually comment on each other's news stories. Social network users typically seek to assemble a group of friends or followers with whom they interact. Information on a user's profile is often only accessible to the user's friends.
Social networks are providing users with increasingly sophisticated functionality. Early social networks offered little more than a simple interface for users to communicate and post messages. Now, on many social networks, users may share numerous different types of content and interact with each other's content in a variety of ways. Content shared on a social network may include digital media such as videos. Users may upload videos to social networks and post links to videos hosted by third party sites. Users may discover new videos and share videos posted on their friends' profiles. Because of their collaborative nature, social networks have now become a popular means by which many people share videos and other media content.